Welcome to the Virtual Cabinet post process article.

This article has been created to supplement the Virtual Cabinet Welcome Pack. It contains information relating the Virtual Cabinet post process and is intended for audiences who are about to implement Virtual Cabinet. The topics covered will allow you to prepare for your upcoming Virtual Cabinet implementation.

This article covers topics relating to both Incoming and Outgoing Post.

Let start with the incoming post….

There are a few common scenarios that are used to process incoming post into Virtual Cabinet. However the most important decisions are within your business processes. Virtual Cabinet can usually fit in with these existing processes but we recommend that you review the contents of this article before we arrive.

Let’s run through some common scenarios to give you food for thought. For these scenarios we are going to deal with 3 roles:

The Scanner - the person that performs the act of scanning the paper form of the post into Virtual
The Post Router - the person that can decide who the post needs to be directed
The Recipient – this will be a VC Users or group of users or department that will receive the post in their in-tray to

Post Room Scenario

The process for this scenario would be:

The post arrives in a location within your building
The post is then sorted by Post Routers into piles based on the
The scanner role then takes each pile one at a time scanning them into Virtual cabinet to the appropriate recipient’s
The recipient then actions the documents appropriately in Virtual Cabinet. Please note the roles of Post Router and Scanner are often carried out by the same user!

Scan Immediately Scenario

This is a scenario where the Post Router Role and Scanner role are carried out by 2 separate users. The process for this is:

The post arrives in a location within your building
The Scanner role then scans all of the post into Virtual Cabinet. All items will be scanned into the Virtual Cabinet intray of the Post
The post router will then send the documents from their intray to the appropriate recipient’s intray within Virtual
The recipient then actions the documents appropriately in Virtual

Scan Later Scenario

This scenario uses traditional post routing methods of delivering the physical post to the physical intrays of users or departments.

Each user or department would then scan the post into Virtual Cabinet and action them accordingly.

What’s Best Practice?

Well it depends on your business processes and requirements there is no right or wrong answer.

However, it is best practice to scan the post into the system at the earliest convenience. As a result either the Post Room or Scan Immediately scenarios would be our recommendation. This way all post is searchable, secured and audited in your Virtual Cabinet system.

Now for the Outgoing Post…

Outgoing post processes can be complicated! Depending on your industry and current business processes. We need you to consider your outgoing post process before we arrive on site as it often results in lengthy conversations.

Things to think about with your outgoing post:

Does it need a physical or electronic signature process by the signatory before it can be sent out?
Authorisation processes. For example does someone need to check a letter before it’s sent out and possibly make some changes to it?
The physical process of printing the document and posting it. This will not affect your Virtual Cabinet system per se but while you are mapping the process you should consider your

We recommend that you draw out a flow diagram of the process to help visualise and document it. Feel free to run this by your consultant who will be happy to provide input and wisdom from their experiences.

What we need from you:

Think about your incoming post process in line with the scenarios discussed in this
Review the scanning video/article in our Welcome Pack as these two subjects have overlapping
Think about your outgoing post